Archives for March 2018

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Palestinians in Gaza staged an unarmed protest Friday, part of a planned multi-week event, near the Israeli line of control. They are demanding the right to return to their homes. The Israeli army indiscriminately opened fire on the protesters with live ammunition, killing at least 17 […]

The Qinshan nuclear power plant in Zhejiang province (Image: baike) By Feng Hao | (China Dialogue) | – – Slowing demand for electricity and competition from renewables have halted new reactor approvals, writes Feng Hao Globally, the outlook for new, large nuclear reactors is gloomy, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook. […]

Ma’an News Agency | – – GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Thousands of Palestinians from across the besieged Gaza Strip took to the border with Israel on Friday for the first day of protests in the weeks-long protest being called by Palestinians as “The Great March of Return.” The march began on Friday, March 30, the […]

Via Middle East Monitor By Alastair Sloan | (Middle East Monitor) | – – As the church bells rang in the New Year of 2018, Norway announced that it would be cutting arms sales to any country fighting in Yemen. A couple of weeks later, Germany said the same thing. The Netherlands and Sweden have […]

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump in the course of a speech on infrastructure in Ohio, yesterday, observed that the US was near to completely defeating the ISIL “caliphate” and that the US would be withdrawing from Syria very soon. CBS News: “Trump says U.S. to pull out of Syria “very […]

San Francisco (Tomdispatch.com) – A barely noticed anniversary slid by on March 20th. It’s been 15 years since the United States committed the greatest war crime of the twenty-first century: the unprovoked, aggressive invasion of Iraq. The New York Times, which didn’t exactly cover itself in glory in the run-up to that invasion, recently ran […]

Via Otherwords.org By Peter Certo | (Otherwords.org) | – – The president once distanced himself from the Bush legacy. Now he’s brought back the architects of its darkest moments. Political reporters have a saying: There’s always a tweet. That is, for nearly every political moment or presidential decree, there’s an uncannily on-point comment buried somewhere […]

By Robyn J. Whitaker | (The Conversation) | – – I grew up in a Christian home, where a photo of Jesus hung on my bedroom wall. I still have it. It is schmaltzy and rather tacky in that 1970s kind of way, but as a little girl I loved it. In this picture, Jesus […]

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s charm offensive in New York allegedly involved meeting Oprah Winfrey, which may be the only canny thing I’ve ever heard of him doing. He also had some religious leaders over to his condominium in NYC to stress the importance of […]